How Many Has Fukushima Killed? And How to Promote Nuclear in Japan Today?

As a supporter of Environmentalists for Nuclear: www.ecolo.org... I seek your information. Since in order to (rationally) evaluate
the future direction, of world energy policy, relative safety is surely a question we should most be asking? Not least because…

2. Which is (roughly) 4000 times less deaths than would have been produced by nuclear…
breakthrougheurope.org... Highly unsurprising given nuclear electricity kills less people (per
quantity of electricity) than almost any other energy source,
www-958.ibm.com... Especially hydroelectric as a single dam accident
killed 171,000 en.wikipedia.org...

3. Which is more than even Greenpeace’s very, (very!) questionable estimate of 90,000 for Chernobyl's death toll
www.voanews.com...
It's quite a contrast with the Union of Concerned Scientists 25,000 estimate www.ucsusa.org... Or the (clearly laughable) confirmed toll of 56 www.cbc.ca...

4. As well containing mercury, coal is usually naturally radioactive: See US coal plant fined for giving employees radiation exposure:
green.blogs.nytimes.com... And (despite scrubbers that remove 90-95%) coal
ash is responsible for 100 times radioactive emissions than the equivalent sized nuclear plant…

in fact, the fly ash emitted by a power
plant—a by-product from burning coal for electricity—carries into the surrounding environment 100 times more radiation than a nuclear power plant
producing the same amount of energy. www.scientificamerican.com...

5. Nuclear power can drastically reduce the amount of material available for weapons…

Now UK Policy www.neimagazine.com... We could also easily get rid of Depletive Uranium, and meet 27% of our nuclear
energy needs…

In a report entitled Uranium and Plutonium: Macro-economic Study, the stockpiles of uranium held by the United Kingdom, is enough to fuel three
1000 MWe reactors for their entire 60-year lives www.uranium-stocks.net...

Why I Suppose Environmentalists for Nuclear
I realise there (may) be many ways of making free, green, electricity. But the people behind have this habit of getting assassinated or blackmailed!
Those renewables which are allowed to reach a patent office are all (except hydro; which obviously cannot be done everywhere) sharing totals costs far
beyond nuclears. nuclearfissionary.com... in short nuclear is an established
industry by the TPT, that is therefore allowed to deliver.
In addition the reason renewables are allowed to develop mostly seems connected to industries behind connected to politicians (who then provide
massive subsidies).
This is the way world is, has long been, and so I seriously doubt will change anytime soon. So: (as someone who is not a statesman) I am most
interested, in backing the renewables that produce the most useable electricity, for as little cost as possible, and which can actually be done
(both technologically and politically).

I could oppose nuclear if the risks seemed greater, and if improved safety would not neutralise these risks. But…
Today I am extremely proud Britain is pursuing plans to build 8 brand new, truly massive, nuclear power plants
www.bbc.co.uk... and that this is supported by rising public opinion (in spite of Fukushima)
www.bbc.co.uk... -sometimes even bad publicity can be good publicity! One reason is because Britain will enjoy
the migration of countless German manufacturing jobs, directly into our own economy, whilst progressively reducing CO2 emissions ahead of Germany
(their emissions are currently rising, mostly due to closing their nuclear plants
www.reuters.com...
Because German electricity is already near the most expensive in Europe www.energy.eu... Germany is closing 6 coal plants, and building 11 new
ones… thebreakthrough.org... CO2 is also rising in Japan for identical reasons
www.smartplanet.com...

With nuclear power the inevitable human mistakes cannot be undone in worst case scenarios. It really is just that simple. Nothing can be done. In
fact we may be witnessing such a tragedy right now when you consider the amount of radioactive materials dumped into the ocean and atmosphere by the
Fukushima power plant. The damage is permanent.

The Nuclear Disaster in Fukushima killed already ca. 1.200 People,
mostly the older ones and People in Intensive Care!

Nuke evacuation fatal for old, sick

The doctors and nurses at Futaba Hospital pleaded for help as a radioactive plume wafted over their hospital. They had been ordered out but had no
vehicles to evacuate the hundreds of patients in their care. After two days of waiting in the cold with no electricity, help finally came. Nearly two
dozen patients died in the chaotic, daylong odyssey that followed.

The Nuclear Disaster in Fukushima killed already ca. 1.200 People,
mostly the older ones and People in Intensive Care!

Bad as that is, 1200 is a fraction of the 30,000 coal kills in the US every year.
Once more: The old people didn’t die of radiation, but lack of electricity (applicable to any power source obstructing a tsunami)
I know this because: Old people are highly resistant to radiation because their cell division has almost totally slowed (one reason why it takes them
months to recover from e.g. a broken arm). But it’s also how they are resistant to radiation (because any cells that are damaged, have little chance
of growing enough to harm them, within their remaining life time).

Leo Strauss

“The damage is permanent.”

What’s really silly is…
1. Carbon dioxide levels have doubled since the industrial revolution. There is no realistic way we’ll get that CO2 back, just like there’s no
realistic way we’ll put the radiation from Fukushima or Chernobyl back either. Be it oil, or even gas (relatively low carbon) the problem is the
same. It’s easy to imagine how climate change can kill more than nuclear’s combined death toll –times hundreds. Worst of all the permanently
damaged land will not only be FAR greater in size, but it won’t even become a wildlife zone like this one:
www.youtube.com... rather most (particularly in poor countries) is scheduled to become desert. The difference with C02’s
damage is not that it is less, but it’s more subtle, and more likely to affect people who’ve never (even half) enjoyed the benefits of
electricity.
2. The radiation emitted from coal ash is also permanent. Very permanent (as being natural) it will primarily be long half-lives. Therefore Victorian
coal burnt in London, will do almost exactly the same damage today, it did then.
3. Coal also contains high levels of mercury, arsenic and other nasty’s…

According to a USGS report " recent estimates indicate that of the approximately 200,000 tons of mercury emitted to the atmosphere since 1890,
about 95 percent resides in terrestrial soils, about 3 percent in the ocean surface waters, and 2 percent in the atmosphere.
www.mine-engineer.com...

It is estimated, that in the US, about 87% of all new mercury emissions come from combustion, and this includes forest fires and other natural
occurrences. However, in the United States, coal fired power plants do emit 48 tons of mercury per year.
www.mine-engineer.com...

Furthermore…
Whilst the damage may be permanent, the incurability of cancer (most probably) isn’t.

“With nuclear power the inevitable human mistakes cannot be undone in worst case scenarios. It really is just that simple.”

Is
“it” really that simple?
Nuclear energy is not one single entity. It is an almost infinitely wide variety of different technologies. The safest being the Pebble Bed Reactor

A pebble-bed reactor thus can have all of its supporting machinery fail, and the reactor will not crack, melt, explode or spew hazardous
wastes. It simply goes up to a designed "idle" temperature, and stays there. In that state, the reactor vessel radiates heat, but the vessel and fuel
spheres remain intact and undamaged. The machinery can be repaired or the fuel can be removed. These safety features were tested (and filmed) with the
German AVR reactor.[6] All the control rods were removed, and the coolant flow was halted. Afterward, the fuel balls were sampled and examined for
damage and there was none. en.wikipedia.org...

Basically you can take an axe to it, and it still won’t go into meltdown. It’s flaw is that it consumes vast amounts of fuel. This problem can be
overcome by reprocessing, or different designs en.wikipedia.org...
In any case: (Unlike accident prone reactors) nuclear waste is responsible for almost no deaths.
All the last 3 reactors have caused disasters (3 mile island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima) have two things in common: Designed in the late 1960’s and
fully constructed by the early 1970’s.
If a car designed in the 1960’s and built in the 1970’s is unsafe, do you not think it’s a bit unfair to judge all modern cars the same?

The Biggest Problem…
Is that the people criticising nuclear seem to know extremely little about it. Many might (vaguely) know the Light Water Reactor because its
use is so frequent. Here’s the killer aspect: There are flaws with (some) modern reactors which could & should be designed out. The problem is this will never
happen, so long as you people don’t know where to place your criticism.
All I see on this Japan forum is a sick competition to make the most depressing (and often factually absurd) claims, as possible.

Nobody asks the most normal & useful question, which is: “How to avoid what went wrong, happening again?”
(Because of Fukushima) humanity could have had an international law, by now, which said: “No new reactors, built after Fukushima, will lack Passive
Safety Systems” (i.e. systems free the need for human involvement).
(As an expert in nuclear reactors) I myself wouldn’t advocate this. What I would advocate is a law where no new reactors, are not built underground
(same designs –just in a hole). Had this been a law when 3 mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima were all built, then almost no radioactivity would
have escaped. It’s really that simple: Radiation can travel through (some) soil, but radioactivity (i.e. the radioactive particles) are too big, to
even do half a meter.

Even without these laws…
In Fukushima’s case the answer (always) was: Don’t build Boiling Light Water Reactors in an earthquake zone, and if you do, build the emergency
generators so they are waterproof, or at least above ground, so they don’t get submerged, and provide them with more than 90 minutes of fuel!
The Japanese people do not deserve what happened. But oh boy, did the Japanese government earn their current headache!!! There were (after all)
copious, loud, warnings…

newsfeed.time.com...–-35-years-ago/ The failings of the Fukushima nuclear reactor were
so substantial that three General Electric scientists who helped design the now imperilled reactors resigned from the company.

That’s bad!
In order for well paid, well-meaning scientists, to give up their jobs 35 years ago.

Both Chernobyl and Fukushima were caused by governments giving the same level of respect towards their people, (as you or I) would towards productive
insects.
Both disasters are therefore as much about technology, as they are about governments. Bad governments will always exist, but bad technology needn’t
–but only if you know where to place your criticisms! Instead of opposing all nuclear technology, a wise person (or movement) should oppose
the most dangerous versions –whilst advocating the others as there’s between little, to nothing, wrong with them.
Of course: This takes far more brain & effort than simply making mindless criticisms, and often equally as irrational fear stories. It’s all noise
to those of us in authority, and the fact (that even now) the anti-nuclear movement can’t-(or will not) articulate an intelligent argument (despite
not lacking them) confirms, that in all probability, it’s combined efforts are going to go to waste –just the protests of some wild animal (well,
at least as far as Britain & America are concerned). As for the other countries: Their abandonment of nuclear energy is to our serious, economic advantage. In all probability our governments
should covertly support their anti-nuclear movements –in fact I suspect they are (particularly in Germany).

“There is no perfect Place,
Human Error can and will be happen everywhere!”

I don’t disagree human error will always happen. But do you disagree that technology (i.e.
reality itself) can limit the degree, to which things can go wrong?

For example: If someone built a Pebble Bed Reactor near your house, how exactly do you (with all your anti-nuclear wisdom) believe it could go
wrong?
Remember: You can put an axe into its cooling systems, but the laws of physics mean its nuclear reactions simply produce less heat, thereby remaining
at exactly the same temperature as before. The only way I know: Is if its coolant (helium which becomes radioactive) leaked. However if that happened it would travel in one direction,
up! So it could only be carried by the wind at vertical, 25-45 degree angels!
Furthermore: Radioactive helium has a very short half-life (it’s radioactivity decreases by half every 807 milliseconds), so within minutes
of plugging this leak, the danger is literally 99.999% gone.

Although there are eight known isotopes of helium (He) (standard atomic mass:
4.002602(2) u), only helium-3 (3
He) and helium-4 (4
He) are stable. All radioisotopes are short-lived, the longest-lived being 6He with a half-life of 806.7 milliseconds. The least stable is 5He, with a
half-life of 7.6×10−22 seconds. en.wikipedia.org...

“We should wait with the use of Nuclear Energy
until we solved the Problems!”

What problems are you waiting to be solved, then? As far as I’m aware all (except waste) has been
solved (by different designs). The only issue is demanding the safest & best nuclear technology be used, something the anti-nuclear movement usually
fails to do because (probably out of ignorance) it opposes the technology completely.

The stuff that persists is extremely small in volume, is usually cut up, then mixed in concrete, inside stainless steel barrels (as these don’t
rust). All this waste needs is a deep hole underground, inside stable rock, millions of years old (of which there is plenty of). Surely: As waste
(unlike power station accidents) has caused no catastrophes whatsoever, the world would be much safer if only the anti-nuclear movement, was against
those power stations, requiring one (or more) people, to remain safe?

Currently: Most waste is stored at the power stations. But that’s it's because the anti-nuclear movement refuses to do anything but oppose
everywhere else the waste should be buried. Such is their great “wisdom”! Meanwhile: New power stations are constructed, because (if US-UK didn’t) then other countries like India & China would build even more of
their unsafe ones. They will build more, because they will need more, and that’s because of jobs leaving our country (following the cheaper supply
of electricity) on which particularly most industrial jobs, are dependent).

“Look to Chernobyl and you can see with what
a Decadence the International Politic handle
the problematic!”

Not international at all!!! It was a communist reactor, and no reactors of this design have been built since. Only a
dictatorship (official or otherwise) would want such an unsafe design. As for dictatorships: There’s little point in debating! As (outside
sanctions, at least) they are a law, onto themselves.

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